This insight summarises Why AI agents aren't booking your rooms yet, by Markus Busch, editor/publisher at hospitality.today, published on Hospitality Net on 9 November 2026. The article first appeared on hospitality.today.
Four rides in a busy week. In the week of Halloween, personal AI agents placed around 500 food orders and booked four rides on Uber. "A grand total of 4 trips," finance chief Balaji Krishnamurthy said on Uber's third-quarter call. DoorDash, Airbnb and Expedia described similar results, and Booking Holdings put AI referrals at "significantly less than 1%" of Booking.com's room nights.
Restaurants are the exception. ChatGPT seated 190,000 OpenTable diners in September, the first full month after restaurant booking launched in the chat. The guest gives a time and party size, sees open tables and books without leaving the conversation. "OpenTable built that connection with OpenAI directly."
Hotel bookings finish elsewhere. The Booking.com and Expedia apps in ChatGPT show live hotels and rates, then send guests to their own sites to book. "OpenAI shelved its own in-chat checkout in March," leaving the last step with the OTA. Google's AI Mode has booked US hotels since 27 August through ten OTAs and hotel chains, but Google has not said how many. Expedia and Cloudbeds have announced direct hotel connections to Meta's Muse; neither is live yet.
Guests won't hand over the card. In a September Mastercard report, 85% of consumers were open to an AI agent finding the best product, but only one in ten would let it complete the purchase. An April Forrester survey found three in four adults in the US, UK and Canada uncomfortable letting an agent pay. Rooms add deposits, cancellation deadlines and non-refundable rates, and travellers want to know someone will "answer the phone."
The numbers may undercount. Companies count only outside agents. "A guest who plans in ChatGPT and books in the Booking.com app the next day shows up as an app booking, not an AI referral." Every company reporting a small number is also building its own AI.
Dates to watch. Expedia lists hotel booking inside Muse as "coming soon" in the US, Cloudbeds' connection for independent hotels is due in the first quarter of 2027, and Airbnb plans to start rolling out its own AI travel agent in the first half of 2027. "The first test comes in February, when Booking Holdings and Expedia report the fourth quarter."
AIHA practical takeaway. Run Busch's test: ask ChatGPT and Google's AI Mode for a room at your hotel on a night you have availability, and note the rate quoted and whose button completes the booking. Check your analytics for visits from chatgpt.com and whether any of them book. For most independent hotels, Busch expects these bookings to arrive through an OTA's connection first, so keep OTA content, rates and policies accurate.
Related AIHA insight: Personal AI assistants could be re-shopping 'landmine' for hotels.